All My Children to Debut Video Podcast
News has broken that All My Children will become the second daytime soap opera to offer content through Apple iTunes.
According to Linda Marshall-Smith with Soapdom, the press release sent out by ABC and AMC stated that the content, which will be made available both on iTunes and ABC.com, will consist of a weekly video podcast that will backstage footage, focusing on particular actors or storylines each week.
Marshall-Smith reports that the feature will be available for free and quotes Executive Producer Julie Hanan Carruthers as saying "the video podcast will provide an enhanced fan experience, allowing our loyal viewers to become equally as intimate with the actors as they have already become with the characters they play."
The first soap opera to launch into iTunes, the 30-minute soap opera Passions, is making every episode available through iTunes, as opposed to this ancillary content from All My Children.
In a similar vein, I have written in the past about the podcasts available for Procter & Gamble Productions shows which play audio-only versions of each episode for those who may have missed or not be able to watch As the World Turns or Guiding Light, the InTurn show airing on CBS innertube associated with As the World Turns in which aspiring actors compete in a reality show to get a 13-week contract on the soap, the Procter & Gamble channel on AOL Video, and various other online experiments for soap operas.
With the focus of the AMC video podcasts apparently to promote the show by developing a stronger connection between fans and actors, it will be interesting to see how popular the content is with viewers of the soap. Would anyone watch this content who were not fans of the show? And would fans of the show feel compelled to watch this online content that does not relate to the storyworld of the show but rather how the show is put together?